With
the Super Bowl behind us thoughts turn in New England to perhaps the
area’s
most beloved sports team –the Boston Red Sox. Herewith for your reading
pleasure, snippets about the Old Towne Team.

Enjoy.

Harvey
Frommer

Ted
Williams and Yogi Berra

MEL
PARNELL:I was 25-years old in 1947 when I
went to
spring training at Sarasota, Florida, with the Red Sox. There were two
spots
open on the pitching staff, six of us vying. Harry
Dorish
got one; I got the other.

I
came into Fenway
Park
for the first time and saw that leftfield fence, and I thought maybe I
had
signed with the wrong organization. But it helped me work on making a
change in
my pitching style. I came up as a fastball pitcher but soon realized I
would
have to use a lot more breaking stuff. Pitching at FenwayPark
makes you a better pitcher as you move along.

I
pitchedmy first major league game on
April 20 againstWashington. Frankie Hayes, an old
veteran
player, was my catcher. I lost that game, 3–2, on a passed ball. I
guess that's
why I remember Frankie.

It
truly impressed me as a rookie kid to see Mr. Yawkey on the field
taking
batting practice with us.I didn’t see
him hit any balls out, but he got some close to the wall. The kids who
worked
around the ballpark would shag flies for him. When he was done, he
would give
each one a twenty-dollar bill.

SAM
MELE: I started my major league career on April 15, 1947.It was against the Philadelphia
Athletics at FenwayPark. I walked my
first
time at bat. Then I doubled off the left field wall. Next I singled.
Then I
walked again.

I was just thrilled to be there in the
outfield with Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams.“Any ball you can get, you chase me the hell off," second
baseman
Bobby Doerr would tell me. "But don't yell ' I got it, I got it' just
once. Two or three times and I'll get the hell out of the way." We
would
never run together and never did a ball drop in.

DOM
DIMAGGIO:Sam Mele wasn’t a bad outfielder.Ted Williams wasn’t a bad outfielder either
especially at Fenway- - he played that
wall nicely.I enjoyed a challenge,
and
FenwayPark did offer a challenge
because of
its structure. I mastered the ballpark and got along beautifully with
the
fences; they didn’t hurt me and I didn’t hurt them.

I did not shoot for the Green Monster.No.I
was an all-around hitter, a line-drive hitter, a damn good one too.I loved to hit in Fenway.

SAM
MELE:I was moved around by the hand
signals. Ted and Dom were veterans and I was just beginning my career.
Well,
every team was different naturally.Guys
hit to right field no power, give me the palm, go in.Go back against the good hitters, like Mo
Skowron, go back.He had good power to
right field.

Right field, oh how fucking tough that was to
play. The sun came right over the stands.And thecarom along the right
field fence… you cannot go directly towards the wall for the ball.You gotta surround it because it curves.And if it ever goes by you it would end up,
oh, half way to centerfield.

At
that time, they did not have the walls
padded. I went into the right field wall and banged into it.Right after that they padded the right
fieldwall. I went into the bullpen
fence. Later on they padded the bullpen fence.

After every game, everybody--Dom, Pesky,
me,
Doerr--would all gather around Williams' locker and we would talk about
what
happened that day. We would talk about what was going to happen
tomorrow, and
if Ted didn't know about the pitcher for the next day, he would ask
everyone of
us, maybe we saw him and he didn't, maybe we saw him in the minors,
maybe we
knew something about the guy....

I
always sat next to Williams in the dugout.Matter of fact he would call me over if I didn't. "You sit
here." He used to tell me about the pitcher: “Look for this, look for
that, he's fast, but his ball doesn't move as much as somebody else’s.“

If
he didn't know that pitcher he would go up and down the whole dugout
wanting to
know: "Has anybody seen this guy?How's his curveball?Slow?Does it go down and in?Has
he got a sinker?”Things like that.

On
May
13, 1947,
Ted Williams more than made good on a
promise to a boy in the Malden
hospital that he would hit a homer for him. “The Kid” hit two home runs
for the
kid. Both were pounded to left field, the first pair he'd hit there in
his
career. The roundtrippers paceda 19-6
walloping of the White Sox.

The
Red Sox's longtime
owner was never enthusiastic about night baseball. As The Boston
Globe's Hy Hurwitz reported, "Yawkey is strictly in the baseball
business" and added that Yawkey didn't "believe in fashion shows,
nylon hosiery, door prizes and other nonsense."

Finally,
bowing to League pressure, Yawkey yielded, agreeingto 14 night games, two with each American
League team. The Red Sox became the last club in their league to play
under the
lights at home.

About

Harvey

Frommer

One of
the most prolific and respected
sports journalists and oral historians in the United States, author of
the
autobiographies of legends Nolan Ryan,, Tony Dorsett, and Red Holzman,
Dr. Harvey
Frommer is an expert on the New York Yankees and Boston Red Soxand has arguably written more books, articles
and reviews on the Yankees than anyone. In 2010, he was honored by the
City of
New York to serve as historical consultant for the re-imagined old
Yankee
Stadium site, Heritage Field

A
professor now for more than two decades in the MALS program at
Dartmouth
College, Frommer was dubbed “Dartmouth’s Mr. Baseball” by their alumni
magazine. He’s also the founder of www.HarveyFrommerSports.com.Autographed
copies of his books
are available from the author.